ROYAL CANIN: Intelligent Product Catalog, Interactive Web Portal

Deployed on more than 60,000 projects, Bitrix products provide easy to use, effective and highly scalable content management systems and intranet solutions to various industries. Here you can read our recent case studies submitted by our clients and partners. Most of the projects have been developed and are being maintained by Bitrix Partners.

Company Details

Royal Canin is a worldwide manufacturer and supplier of premium dog and cat foods. It was founded in 1967 and taken over by Mars corporation in 2002. Royal Canin is headquartered in Aimargues, France, and is most widely known for clinical research,formulation, testing, manufacturing and marketing of a wide range of breed-specific and symptom-specific diets for dogs and cats. Royal Canin has eight production plants on four continents and a large number of representative offices in more than 90 countries around the globe. The Royal Canin brand name was one of the first to enter the Russian market in the early 1990s and very soon it became a well-recognized trade mark among many Russian and CIS veterinary professionals and pet owners.

Project Goals and Requirements

Royal Canin was looking for an online solution that would create a friendly environment for communicating and sharing experience between Royal Canin clients, partners, the company’s specialists, and all people who cannot imagine their lives without their pets. The new website was planned to include more elements common to social networks. This improvement would then help both professional and amateur pet owners discuss their problems with Royal Canin representatives, and veterinary specialists, creating tighter connections among partners throughout Russia.

Another important goal was to provide website visitors with the latest information about new products, price changes, promotional campaigns, etc. The new Royal Canin website was seen as a flexible tool for coordinating projects between Russian and international veterinary specialists and the company employees. It was obvious that only using a professional content management system could all these ideas be brought to life. The "to-do list" and main features that were supposed to be realized in the new Royal Canin website:

Product showcase and interactive product catalog with filter options;

User profiles with different access permissions;

Voting and article submission for registered users;

Blogs and forums as part of online socializing and feedback mechanism;

Questionnaire web forms and simple assistance request submission;

Easy publishing options for the news section, local and international event feeds;

Royal Canin dealers and resellers locator implemented as an interactive map

The Solution

Platform and Project Developer

The technological platform for the Royal Canin new web portal was Bitrix Site Manager: Enterprise Edition. Bitrix Site Manager is a unique CMS product that allows content managers and web designers instantly to make any changes to the content either from the front end or at the back end of the website. The Enterprise Edition of Bitrix Site Manager provides a number of Web2.0 services that add interaction to the website and extend communication tools for project owners and project visitors.

As an example of advanced CMS technologies available using the Bitrix Site Manager products, you can not only upload photos or videos, but also initiate a discussion of each item separately on the website, allow visitors to rate your pictures or vote for videos published on your web resource. Blogs, Forums and Helpdesk services are also excellent tools for interacting with visitors on the Internet.

The project was developed and is being maintained by Promo Interactive, an innovative marketing agency which has a status of Bitrix Gold Partner. Promo Interactive is among the top five web advertising agencies in Russia, offering its clients a wide range of innovative solutions for brand promotion on the Internet, mobile services and other multimedia channels.

"It is important for us to provide high quality solutions for our customers. The web projects we develop for our clients are quite ambitious and usually have a number of tough requirements which can only be met by a professional content management system. That is why we trust Bitrix products, which have always been reliable and easy to work with." - said Boris Shpirt, Chief Business Strategy Advisor at Promo Interactive.

Project launch

The project development started in June 2009, and was completed four months later. After the website was launched, all pet owners, company customers and veterinary specialist started receiving a steady stream of information about the Royal Canin products, promo campaigns, local and international events. The news feed and newsletter were the two core tools for building website audience.

Every day the new portal featured more and more articles about how to take care of pets, what diet apet should be given, miscellaneous tips, health topics written both by professional vets and amateur pet owners. This mix formed a natural reflection of the pet-owner’s world and influenced the website audience growth and the company's image very positively.

Interactive product catalog

The product catalog was made interactive and includes product search filters. The search filters were developed using flash technology and allow website visitors instantly to find the most suitable product for their pet taking into account the pet's breed, age, weight and even special dietary needs. The catalog filter was a custom element that was developed by Promo Interactive and integrated into the Bitrix Site Manager platform seamlessly.

Social networking as a wise marketing move

The main task of creating a full-featured social network for pet owners and veterinary professionals was achieved successfully. Now all Royal Canin registered users can upload and post their pet's best photos right on the www.royal-canin.ru website, allow their photos to be rated by other users, find answers in the FAQ sections or request help from the Royal Canin specialist via forums or simple web forms. Photos can also be posted in personal blogs with limited access, or be published in open common galleries for public view.

Meanwhile, the project developers are making the final arrangements to launch communities that will add even more possibilities to share experience and ideas between pet owners and veterinary specialists.

Feedback and customers' support

The "Questions and Answers" section was also developed using the Bitrix Site Manager standard components. These components require no special programming skills; they can be drag-and-dropped in the built-in editor available in Bitrix Site Manager right onto to a page you wish to modify. Thanks to these components, the Royal Canin website visitors can ask any questions and request assistance from the website moderators. Different issues can be discussed on the website: How to change pet food for kittens when they grow up; what are the pet food storage recommendations; what breed-related recommendations can be made concerning the dietary regime, etc. Answers can also be found on the website in the forums, blogs, and website section or just asked online using modifiable web forms.

Royal Canin pet food reseller locator

One of the special featured realized on the Royal Canin website was the integration of GoogleMaps. Wherever they are, the pet owners can locate the nearest Royal Canin pet food reseller, distributor or veterinarian, and contact them immediately. The GoogleMaps element integrated on the website offers contact details and location information for each store selling Royal Canin products.

"The new Royal Canin website is not just an online replica of a pet food company. It is a modern web resource rich in multimedia content. It offers great interaction capabilities to its visitors, and includes several thoroughly developed constituent parts: trade mark and brand directory, full-featured product catalog, online pet care and diet encyclopedia, and Web 2.0 social networking facilities. All created using a single CMS platform, Bitrix Site Manager, that enabled our web developers to realize such a wonderful solution for the client" - summarized Boris Shpirt, Chief Business Strategy Advisor at Promo Interactive.

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